Songs about Virgins

Subject: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 01:50 PM

I've searched the DT for songs about virgins, and found some stuff, but I was wondering if anyone out there had any more suggestions, sources, or songs. I'm trying to explore the various depictions of virgins- curious, prudish, eager, etc.- through song.

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST,dRwORD
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 01:55 PM

I'm sure you'll find _The bold librarian_ in the digital tradition, which mght suit your search criterion.

cheers,
d.

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Susan of DT
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 02:24 PM

A search for maidenhead yields a long list

For the various attitudes
Maid on the Shore
Blow Away the Morning Dew
Old Maid in a Garret (and the other old maid songs)
No Courage in Him
Never Wed an Old Man
Knight and the Shephers's Daughter
Sentry Box
Widow of Westmoreland's Daughter
there are sooo many...

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 02:33 PM

Of course, those "maidenhead" songs may start out being about virgins....

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 03:21 PM

By definition! :D


A

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST, ...
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 03:22 PM

Cherry Tree Carol (see 'Surrepetitious paternity tests' thread, below)

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Genie
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 03:30 PM

Yes, Joe, a song sung in the voice of a long-since 'deflowered' woman may refer to when and how she lost that maidenhead:
"Oh, we left 'em in the ale house
And passed the jug around!" (Three Drunken Maidens)

"Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness ..." (The Ball At Kierymuir) (sp?)

"Earl Marshall had my maidenhead underneath these cloths of gold." (Eleanor & Henry)

Paddy Graber sings a song called "Arbutus Tree" that would fit your category. (She prays to the gods for rescue from a forced 'maidenhead-verification procedure' and is turned into a tree.)

The song "Unquiet Grave" is one of many songs that alludes to virginity in the context of impossible things:
"Go bring me water from the desert
Or blood from out a stone.
Go bring me milk from a young maid's breast
That young man never has known."

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 03:39 PM

Do Virgins Taste Better?

Clean up your dirty mind. It's about the traditional favorite food of dragons. In DT

Well, I have to admit there's a slight bawdy joke at the end of the song.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 03:41 PM

Oh, I was going to mention that I understand it's intended to be sung to The Irish Washerwoman, but I find that hard to sing and also hard to understand. I sing it to the tune of Villikins and His Dinah.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: gnu
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 03:54 PM

Easy and Slow....

"T'was down by Christchurch that I first met with Annie...."

Now... I don't know about virgin, but, she was not a bit shy as I rolled up my sleeve, for to...

Many explanations.

I will leave you to the sordid ones.

And, no, "sleeve" is not not on one's arm.

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 04:37 PM

Guest (threadstarter): how about posting the results of your searches? It'll reduce the redundancy in replies, and p'raps provide something useful for later readers.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Schantieman
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 04:40 PM

What the hell have they got to sing about?

;-)

S

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST,Calico
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 06:35 PM

Fantasies?

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST,memyself
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 06:38 PM

Probably about as much as most of the rest of us around here ...

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Greg B
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 06:40 PM

To the tune of Reuben Reuben...

Caviar's made from virgin sturgeons
Virgin sturgeon's a very rare fish
No good sturgeon wants to be a virgin
That's why caviar is my dish

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Joybell
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 07:13 PM

I always like the "...round young virgin..." in "Silent Night". I've heard it that way since 1944.
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST,Calico
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 07:27 PM

I thought it was "Round John Virgin."

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: gnu
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 07:57 PM

Closer...

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 08:04 PM

What's a virgin?
They're as rare as the songs about them!

Colyn.

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Homeless
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 08:11 PM

You can hear the Brobdingnagian Bards sing Do Virgins Taste Better to the tune of Irish Washerwoman here

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 08:18 PM

Here's a couple:

Broomfield Hiil / Broomfield Wager:

"A wager, a wager with you, my pretty maid,
Here's five hundred pound to your ten
That a maid you shall go to yon merry green broom,
But a maid you shall no more return"

Lovely Joan:

Then he pulled off his ring of gold
"My pretty little miss, do this behold.
I'd freely give it for your maidenhead
And her cheeks they blushed like the roses red."

"Give me that ring into my hand
And I will neither stay nor stand,
For this would do more good to me
Than twenty maidenheads," said she.

(More maidenheads per verse than any other song!)

You could probably search on "maid" as well as "maidenhead", though you might have to be selective in the resulting list.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 08:51 PM

Go to immortalia John will have lots of good stuff for you.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

references on the Mudcat site.

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST,Scoville at Dad's
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 08:54 PM

We used to play a tune called "Greasy Coat", which we originally were told was about alcohol, but which someone later told me (I guess when he thought I was old enough) that it was another maidenhead reference.

I don't drink and I don't smoke,
I stay away from the greasy coat.

I don't smoke and I don't chew,
I stay away from the girls that do.



So maybe it was the MAN who was the virgin in this one?

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST,Scoville at Dad's
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 08:58 PM

Actually, as I just got on the Internet to find the words to Bob Wills' "Maiden's Prayer", which isn't specifically about virgins but which I always thought must be fair game for double entendres.

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 09:03 PM

The Masses are Asses.

It has been a sorry state of situations since the barbarians breached the defences.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Bert
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 09:06 PM

Lolly Too Dum

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Deckman
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 09:30 PM

"My Mother Chose My Husband!" Bob

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins - Anathea
From: GUEST,Calico
Date: 02 Dec 06 - 09:57 PM

"Anathea"
Her brother warns her that the cruel judge
"will rob you of your flower
and he'll hang me from the gallows."

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 12:16 PM

Not a song, but an aside about how things have changed.

In 1952 the editor of the Princeton humor magazine was suspended for printing the following:

"Virginity is the mose bixarre, and least rewarding, of the sexual perversions."

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: greg stephens
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 12:21 PM

The old carol "A Virgin Unspotted"

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 01:56 PM

I travelled the Atlantic on a high flying plane,
I drank special coke on a British train.
And in case you hadn't noticed, a pattern is emergin',
The plane, the coke and train are all part of 'Virgin'

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 05:48 PM

The Two Magicians - I heard the Devil's Interval version yesterday - the result of a children's workshop they ran at Sidmouth festival, in which children aged 7-10 were invited to contribute their own verses. To be performed with actions. Some very ingenious, though TDI explained that Maidenhead is a town in Berkshire....

Kitty

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 09:59 PM

GUEST

re:

Princeton 1952

SOURCE - Please...SOURCE

Location, publication, author, web resource, memory, hear-say (when,where,how)

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 12:01 AM

Dunno about the GUEST, but I recall the incident from my college days--say, 1948.

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 07:08 AM

"I don't drink and I don't smoke,
I stay away from the greasy coat."

Given the context of the other lines, I would have thought the 'greasy coat' was a prostitute and thus a good reason for staying away from them, so as not to catch anything nasty. Virgins were the preferred bed partner for 'customers' who wanted to reduce their chance of sexually transmitted diseases because they were less likely to be infected. To be sure they were virgins, the 'customers' would choose younger and younger girls. The age of consent was originally introduced to protect these young girls from becoming sexually active before puberty.

I have recently purchased a book as a present for someone, which contains several recipes for 'growing it back' if anyone is interested....

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Scoville
Date: 04 Dec 06 - 01:37 PM

Well, whatever it is, the TUNE sure sounds less innocent than alcohol. One of those creepy Am fiddle tunes.

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Fidjit
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 12:19 PM

City Waites did a song about selling a Maidenhead several times over.

A chambermaid could sell it 50 times or more it seems.

And then when "Cracked" (pregnant) would wed a bumkin farmer???

Chas

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: gnu
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 02:52 PM

So, the bumpkin farmer didn't care if jimmy cracked corn?

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: Genie
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 10:33 PM

LTS: "I have recently purchased a book as a present for someone, which contains several recipes for 'growing it back' if anyone is interested."

Oh, I dunno, Liz.   At my age, I'm not sure anyone would ever know if it worked or not. §;-D

Subject: RE: Songs about Virgins
From: GUEST,GUEST
Date: 09 Dec 06 - 02:12 PM

Thank you all- so helpful. I'm in Tony Barrand's folksongs class at BU, and he recommended this resource early in the semester. I only wish I had used it sooner!